In the late winter of 1872 he had been arraigned before the House of Commons for two displays of arrogant corner-cutting. In the first case he wished to appoint Sir Robert Collier to a vacancy on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Collier, who later became Lord Monkswell and founded an interesting dynasty, was a fine lawyer, whose personal qualifications were never challenged. Nor was there anything unusual about propelling the Law Officers into high judicial office. Indeed, when a few years later the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas was transformed into the Lord Chief Justice of England the office became known as the ‘Attorney-General’s pillow’, so frequently did political Law Officers go direct to that position. But there was a specific provision that a judicial appointment to the Privy Council had to have served as a High Court judge in either England or India. Scotland or Ireland would not do. Gladstone solved the problem by appointing Collier to the puisne bench for a two-day spell.
